Tag: moms-search-for-meaning

Categories
Fulfillment

Motherhood: Just like a glamorous career!

I’d Rather Be Writing has an interesting post on a recent episode of the NPR show, This American Life:

The point of the show is that glamorous jobs usually turn out to be boring. The cartographer’s story was one of the most interesting:

Charles Preuss … charted the Western Territories with two of American history’s legendary explorers—John Charles Fremont and Kit Carson. The maps Preuss made were best sellers and helped open the Western frontier to settlement. But, as he wrote in the diary he kept while in the wilderness, he hated pretty much every minute of the expedition.

Preuss had to rough the uncharted frontier so he could do what he really wanted to do: make maps. Isn’t life like that?

I’d have to agree. But I also have to say that the drudgery of every day life—whether you’re an astronaut (another person profiled in the story), a cartographer or a mother, you have to learn to find joy every day in the small things. The day-to-day, whether it be roughing the frontier, stultifying meetings or endlessly keeping your son from playing in the garbage, can seem to be more than you can bear.

If you haven’t learned this yet, let me tell you: you can bear a lot, and probably more than you know. But who wants to just bear his or her entire life? The big rewards (space walks, drawing maps, the perfect day with your kids) are incredible, but you have to get by between them—and they may be few and far between.

I invite you to find joy in the every day today.

Categories
Fulfillment

Toy Story and Fulfillment

I was thinking about Toy Story the other day. If you’ll recall, Buzz Lightyear is a toy. He thinks he’s an astronaut. Everyone around him knows that he’s a toy, but only Woody really attempts to correct him (and not kindly).

Eventually, Buzz discovers that he is, in fact, a toy. Although quite upset initially, by the end of the movie Buzz accepts that he is a toy—and being a toy is actually a good thing.

I am not a toy (I don’t think), but I’m still in the process of accepting that what I really am is a good thing (and not just during the fun times chasing my son around the couch).

I think that to be fulfilled you must, as the ancient Greeks would say, know thyself. I’m not saying that you have to spend a year backpacking through Asia or join the Peace Corps to “find yourself.” As André Gide said, “Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.”

But to know who you really are—and accept it—is key to being fulfilled. Once you know who you really are, then you can decide if you are who you want to be, and grow and change in the direction of what you want to become.

How do I want to grow? I want to become more patient, more attentive and engaged with my son, and more kind toward my husband (and everyone else, too, I guess). I am a wife, a mother and a writer—all of which allow me to continue to grow and be fulfilled as a person.

Categories
Fulfillment Faith

Growing Pains

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘growing pains’—and I hope not just as the title of the Kirk Cameron 80s sitcom. I remember as a teenager, my legs ached during a growth spurt. More vividly, I remember the sundry pains and discomforts of pregnancy as my baby (and belly) grew.

Despite these experiences, I tend to think of growth in rather innocuous terms. I just don’t imagine a germinating seed to be in any discomfort.

In the last few weeks, Hayden has begun his latest round of teething. Two new teeth have erupted, and two more are on the way. His pain has been tormenting us all lately, and no amount of acetaminophen is helping. Often, I’m tempted to tell my poor little boy, “Life’s rough—and then you die.”

While the statement has become a cliché among mothers, as I deal with his frustrated cries, I’m reminded that life is rough—and not just for my preverbal toddler. Between keeping him happy and out of the cat’s litterbox, and keeping the house clean and the family fed, I often have trouble keeping my sanity intact.

Whenever I start to feel that I’ve gotten the hang of this motherhood thing, something changes and I have to start all over again. When I was just starting out as a mother, I felt as though I might drown in motherhood. It was so completely overwhelming to have someone who needed you so completely, so often (okay, constantly).

Why was this so hard? Why would the calling of motherhood, one that I know is divinely appointed, make me feel as though I couldn’t bear another day of it? If this is how my life should be, why was I falling apart?

Why was motherhood so hard—so hard that my even my soul ached? How could this be God’s will for me if it made me feel so terrible?

I don’t think I really began to understand until I read this:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house than the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 205)

I wanted to grow as a mother—but I wanted to be the seed. I wanted to have all of the benefits of motherhood (um… wait, wait, don’t tell me… 😉 ) without the work—and the pain.

But after giving birth, there’s no epidural for the rest of motherhood. And you know what? I’m beginning to believe that it’s a good thing, too. Besides, being a seed probably isn’t as easy as it looks.

For more posts on growth, see scribbit’s April Write-Away Contest Entries.

Categories
Fulfillment

Finding fulfillment: Jane Clayson Johnson

Earlier this week, I quoted an article “I Am a Mother.” It was written by Jane Clayson Johnson. If her name sounds familiar, it could be because she spent 15 years on network news, first for ABC News, then as a co-anchor on CBS’s Early Show. She was at the top of her game, and negotiating a lucrative contract, when she decided to leave journalism—for motherhood.

She talks about people’s various reactions in her article and in her book of the same name. Today I got to hear her speak at BYU. She’s now the happy mother of two (and stepmother of three more). I learned so much from listening to her speak; she has an amazing perspective on life and its seasons.

One of my favorite stories that she shared took place not too long ago. She was with her family in Florida (I think), and she said she had on her “new mom outfit,” no make up, diaper bag and kids in tow. Someone she’d worked with several times recognized her and flagged her down.

“So,” he asked once he’d caught up with her. “What are you up to now?” He glanced at her children. “Just a mom?”

It took her only a split second to respond: “Just a mom? No, no—I am a mother,” she declared proudly.

At the end of her excellent talk (you’d think she’d been paid to write and speak for decades! Oh, wait…), there was a little bit of time for questions.

Naturally, I hopped right up, ducked under a few handrails and got to the microphone (luckily my sister was there to hold on to Hayden).

I asked Jane how she found fulfillment as a mother. Here’s what she said (from my notes; my tape recorder wasn’t cooperating!)

It’s difficult in our culture because we place such an emphasis on measuring success—awards, titles, etc. As a mother, you don’t get a pat on the back every day. You can’t measure motherhood on a daily basis—it’s a long-term process.

The world esteems titled professions: lawyers, judges. Society seems to set motherhood below those things. But that success is fleeting; it goes away. And there is always someone waiting in the wings to take your place. Your relationship with your children will last forever. It is more important.

I like how she was unafraid to make firm statements, from “I am a mother” to “It is more important.” And that’s something that I like to be reminded of: my relationship with my children will last forever. It is more important. Success in the workplace is nice—I quite like it—but it’s fleeting, and someone can easily replace you there. There is no substitute for a mother to her children.

Categories
Fulfillment

What does the world expect of mothers?

I was more than a little saddened to read this a couple weeks ago from Kim at Catawampus (via Karen at StrollerDerby; read both if you read one; the takes are pretty different)

These days, here’s what society preaches to women:

  1. You can’t be fulfilled unless you have a man and a child.
  2. If you have a child, you should WANT to stay home with your baby, all day, every day.
  3. Doing this will make you feel happy and fulfilled and complete in ways you never imagined.
  4. When your kids are older, you can always go right back into your career.

Here’s what I hear from society:

  1. You can’t be fulfilled unless you have a career (not just a job!) and money. External stuff—praise from your boss, “going places” in your career, toys—makes you happy and fulfilled.
  2. Money. Make money. Yes, have kids, but get back to work ASAP.
  3. More money. Two incomes are an absolute necessity.
  4. “You can have it all” or “You can have it all at once” or even “You must have it all at once.”

I was wondering if I was crazy until I saw my experience echoed in an essay that I haven’t finished reading yet, but I can tell it’s something I need to see. It’s called “I Am a Mother” (and I’m guessing it’s from the author’s book of the same name). When she decided to leave her career to raise her child-to-be,

I found that the reaction from my female colleagues was largely, and disappointingly, less than supportive. I shared my decision with one woman who smugly joked, “Why don’t you just get a nanny?” Another network executive asked me what I was going to do once I got to Boston. I told her I was going to have a family, I was going to be a mother. “No, I understand that,” she said, puzzled, “but what are you going to do?”

All of this was still fresh on my mind during that evening spent near Washington, D.C. A chorus of “I’m just a mother,” juxtaposed with “What will you be without your job?” and “You’re making a terrible mistake” made me wonder, Could they be ­right?

I may struggle with finding “fulfillment” from constantly keeping my 13 month old from playing with the cat food, but I know there is more to motherhood than just that. Society as a whole will probably never understand motherhood. (Kim at Embracing Momminess has an interesting post on this topic, too, looking at the political/feminist side of societal pressure on motherhood.)

I also realize that no matter how many children I have, they can’t give me fulfillment. It’s not a gift you wrap and stick under the tree. However, a job—or a whole career—can’t just give it to me either.

My fulfillment has to start with me. And realizing that is the first step on that path.